


Life Has A Hopeful Undertone (And I'll Be Holding Onto You)

by softiejace



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of homophobia, Mentions of past self-harm, anxious dan, implied depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 11:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6702172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softiejace/pseuds/softiejace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Au in which Dan and Phil are struggling not to drown in unpaid bills, but somehow they're making it work.<br/>Or: Dan has an anxious breakdown and Phil comforts him.</p><p>Title from the songs Migraine and Holding Onto You by Twenty One Pilots</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Has A Hopeful Undertone (And I'll Be Holding Onto You)

**Author's Note:**

> And I will say that we should take a day to break away  
> From all the pain our brain has made,  
> The game is not played alone.  
> And I will say that we should take a moment and hold it  
> And keep it frozen and know that  
> Life has a hopeful undertone. 
> 
> \- “Migraine” by Twenty One Pilots

“Seek assistance”  
Dan curses and takes a deep breath before he swipes his card past the scanner again. The annoying error sound buzzes through the air once more, piercing the busy chatter of the rush hour, and a woman behind him sighs loudly.  
“Seek assistance,” the screen taunts Dan in bright red letters and he can already feel tears prickling at the back of his eyeballs. _No_.  
He swallows hard and tears his gaze away from the card reader, blinking violently. There’s a man in uniform trying to catch his eye but Dan bites down on his bottom lip and turns away quickly, shoving past the people queued up behind him. He doesn’t need to seek assistance from staff to be told that his oyster card needs recharging. His freaking wallet needs recharging.  
Dan ignores the loud complaints of people around him as he busts through the crowd recklessly. Just out, out. Out of the stuffy tube station and into the clear air.  
Except the air isn’t all that clear, because London at 5 pm is bustling with hasty people and honking cars and thick with the stink of noxious fumes. The sky above is thick with heavy grey clouds, and Dan’s head is thick with a fog of noxious thoughts.  
He tries to displace them with positive ones. So what if he can’t take the tube. It’s probably chock-full anyway. Besides, a walk home is supposed to be good to clear your head, right? Get some fresh air, catch some sunlight…  
A young girl passing him gives him a weird look when he laughs out loud at his thoughts, bitterly. He pulls the hood of his jacket over his head and shoves his fists into the pockets as it starts to rain, and wishes for the millionth time for enough money to buy an iPod so he could at least drown out the world.

By the time Dan arrives at his flat the sun has been smothered by a clusterfuck of clouds and his hoodie is clinging to his skin. He’s soaked to the bone, teeth chattering as he jams the key into the lock, struggling with the door for a bit because his hands are shaking so much. It’s only September, it’s not supposed to be this cold.  
The heating isn’t even on yet.  
Finally, the door falls shut behind him and Dan leans back against it, allowing himself to close his eyes and breathe for a moment.  
All he wants is to crawl into bed and have Phil whisper sweet nothings into his ear.  
But his boyfriend won’t be home for at least another hour.  
The tears are threatening to spill again, but Dan holds them back with all his might, because once he starts crying he won’t be able to stop anytime soon and then he’ll end up with a migraine and have to call in sick and _he can’t fucking afford a sick day right now_.  
So he picks himself up and strips off the hoodie to throw it to the laundry. He mops up the puddle he made on the hallway floor and raids the cupboards for instant coffee and Phil’s emergency ration of chocolate, then he builds a fort on the sagging sofa with his threadbare duvet. Focusing on trivial domestic work, ignoring the dark, menacing world.  
Thunder is rumbling outside and Dan ignores it, just as he ignores the creaks of the sofa beneath his weight and the blister on his tongue from the too-hot coffee. He’s okay.  
He’s _okay._  
The tv suddenly goes blank during a particularly loud roll of thunder and Dan sits upright, his hand clenched around the mug although the sloshing coffee burns his skin. “I’m _not_ afraid,” he says out loud to the black screen that is staring back at him deridingly. Dan sets down the empty mug and licks the coffee off his hand.  
“It’s just masses of air colliding”, he tries again, remembering what Phil, writer of the weather forecast for a news website, has told him. “Nimbus, the rain cloud”, he recites. “Cumulonimbus, the storm cloud -” His voice cracks midway and he bites down on his lip again, tasting blood.  
There’s a noise from the hallway and Dan jumps.  
The scratching of a key being turned in the lock sounds eerie in the quiet between thunder rolls. His heart raps against his throat as he pulls out his phone and glances at the screen.  
It’s not time for Phil to be back yet.  
“Dan?”  
The relief he feels sparking up at the sound of Phil’s voice is immediately flooded by doubt and sorrow. They swirl and fill up his chest, building tidal waves that knock hard against his ribcage, threatening to take his breath.  
He scrambles to his feet and out into the hall where Phil is shaking out his umbrella with dry clothes and reddened cheeks and shining eyes.  
The straps that have been holding Dan together snap.  
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Phil, I just mopped here!”  
Phil flinches and his eyes widen. He puts the umbrella down. “I’ll wipe it up, okay?”  
“No, it’s not fucking okay!”  
Now he’s heaving breaths, feeling like he’s drowning, and he didn’t want to let this happen, fucking hell, no, he can’t let the dam break…  
Through clouded eyes, he sees Phil reaching for his hand and pulls away. The words tumble off his tongue and he’s too tired to try and stop them.  
“You can’t just come in here and act like things are okay when they fucking aren’t! You’ve been fired, haven’t you? Why else would you be home early? Don’t fucking lie to me – we’ve got to pay our bills, Phil, the rent is due next week and you haven’t even… you haven’t even said anything, why aren’t you saying anything, Phil, I -”  
He’s cut off by a hiccup and warm hands cupping his cheeks. His half-hearted reluctance is ignored. A mouth presses against his own and suffocates the angry rant.  
He breaks away and continues, softer now, worry and fear lacing through his words, tearing through the mask of ire. “What are we going to do… Phil, if you’ve lost your job that means our income is less than half, I don’t know how -”  
Phil presses a finger against his lips. “Dan, I haven’t.”  
“You haven’t – what?”  
“I haven’t been fired.”  
Dan exhales shakily, his fingers grasping bunches of Phil’s jumper without even noticing. He doesn’t understand. “But then – why are you -”  
“Home early?” Phil’s eyes light up and he smiles, his face so close Dan can count the laughter lines in the corners of his eyes. There’s still a hint of worry in the creases, but it doesn’t gain the upper hand over his excitement. Phil never lets it. “I’ve been promoted.”  
Dan stares at him, dumbfounded. The silence is disturbed by another hiccup.  
“They’re letting me write my own column”, Phil explains. “I can work from here mostly and the pay’s a lot better, too.”  
Dan kisses him, and his hiccups turn into sobs against Phil’s lips, and he’s clutching the fabric of Phil’s jumper as if it were a lifeline. What he wants to say is, “I’m so proud of you”, because really, he is, and Phil deserves the reward because he’s such a good writer and he’s so fucking clever and hardworking and Dan loves him so much, but all that comes spurting out is, “Oh god. Oh thank god. Oh Phil, I’m so sorry”  
“It’s okay”, Phil mutters against his mouth, but Dan pulls away from the kiss and shakes his head. “I’m sorry I shouted at you. I’ve been missing you all afternoon and I’ve had the shittiest day and then you’re home and all I do is rant for no reason, I’m sorry”  
His breath is hitching and he’s sniffling but Phil, wonderful, selfless Phil, holds his arms open and says, “C'mere.”  
Dan sinks into them and allows the waves to crash.

The power’s been cut off but the water in the shower runs hot and steady. Outside, the storm has eased into heavy rain that patters against their windows, providing a soothing background noise. Dan is stood with his back to Phil whose fingers are threading languidly through his hair. He feels 19 all over again, when the older university student had picked him up off the streets, a scrawny teen with filthy hair and self-harm scars and no home to return to.  
The sweetish scent of cheap shampoo fills up his nostrils and he sighs at the feeling of Phil’s fingertips gently massaging his scalp. He can feel the tension resolving, headache slowly retreating, reluctant to admit its defeat. Phil’s always been Dan’s most effective painkiller.  
“Lean forward.”  
Water washes the shampoo out of his thick curls and Phil’s hands venture downwards. Dan flinches when he feels them briefly skimming his neck.  
“Hold still, I’m trying to work out the knots,” Phil murmurs behind him, fingers digging into Dan’s shoulders.  
He tries to measure his breaths, sync them with Phil’s. Maybe they can work out the knots in their life as well.  
When Phil’s hands run down his back and come to rest on his hips, Dan leans back into him, lets his head sink onto his shoulder and the water stream wash away the tear stains on his face. The bathroom air is misty and damp and there’s most likely a moudly spot in the corner of the shower cubicle, but Dan inhales it like it’s salutary, because it’s _home_ , it’s _comfort_.  
Just like Phil’s arms that sneak around his waist, holding him tight.  
“Let’s take tomorrow off”, he whispers, barely audible through the sound of rushing water. “Just stay in bed.”  
Dan presses his head into Phil’s neck. “You know we can’t. They’ll fire us.”  
Gently, Phil turns him around and makes him lean back against the shower wall, ducking to mouth against Dan’s neck. “We could always run away,” he mutters, his breath tickling Dan’s skin. “Leave this city behind, you and me alone.”  
Dan closes his eyes, relishing in the feeling of Phil’s body moving softly against his, but blinks before the dream can take shape.  
“Don’t romanticise tramp life, Phil. We’d starve or freeze to death when it gets cold.”  
As if to confirm his words, the water turns cold and they clamber out of the shower and straight into bed. Shared body warmth makes up for the lack of heating as they huddle close together underneath the duvet.  
Phil’s eyes blink at him, blue and honest in the dimness. “Dan, I’m sorry we can’t afford a better living. I promise you I’ll do my best with the column, I’m going to work on it day and night -”  
Dan presses his index finger against Phil’s lips. “Don’t apologize, Phil. I already owe you so much.”  
He moves closer, replacing the finger with his mouth. Their lips slot together slow and sweet, and everything feels just that slight bit less frightening when Phil’s body is pressed to his, the heaving and sinking of his bare chest a calming parameter in Dan’s shaking, swirling world.  
“That shower is going to be evident in our next water bill,” he mumbles as they part for breath.  
Phil yawns. “It’s on me.”  
He reaches out to pull Dan into his chest, but Dan resists. “I don’t want you to pay for everything, Phil, it’s not fair. I’ll have to find a better job soon.”  
It’s not like he _loves_ stacking boxes at Tesco. “Sometimes I think my father was right, y'know,” he says haltingly. “If I’d gone into law, we wouldn’t be struggling to pay the rent now.”  
Fingers tilt his chin upwards. Phil’s brow is furrowed. “Dan, stop. You know I don’t care if you pay less than half. You’ve made it up to me just by being there. I love you. And don’t even start like that – if you’d become a lawyer just because your father wanted you to, it never would’ve made you happy.”  
What he doesn’t say is that they wouldn’t even have met if Dan had complied with his father’s wishes. Dan knows Phil is secretly glad everything went the way it did. He also knows that Phil would never admit to this.  
His boyfriend’s voice softens and his hand moves to cup Dan’s cheek. “I just want you to be happy, okay? Who cares what he wanted. Apparently he also wanted a straight son, and look how that worked out.”  
Dan cracks a tiny smile. He wishes he could laugh at Phil’s words, but the thought of his father still leaves a bitter taste behind, a reminder of the nagging wound in his heart that has only started to fade in the past years. Some things aren’t easily forgotten, and one of them certainly is being told that you’re an abomination. Even if the words are taken back afterwards. Because afterwards is too late.  
Phil shifts to press his forehead against Dan’s. He’s so close Dan can feel his breath on his face, and the flutter of his eyelids.  
He knows Phil’s right, knows that he shouldn’t care, shouldn’t still be clinging to the idea that he had to please his father somehow, to make him proud.  
And yet…  
“I don’t want to disappoint _you_ ”, he breathes, blinking fresh tears away. He wants to make Phil proud, to make him happy, because it’s always Dan who spills his guts and Phil who listens and holds him, and he feels so incredibly selfish.  
“You couldn’t”, Phil whispers, leaning in for another kiss, and Dan wants to believe him, but it’s not easy.  
It’s never been and maybe it’ll never be.  
“You don’t have to try so hard, Dan”, Phil mutters against his lips. “You’re only twenty-four. You’ve got all the time in the world to find out what you want to do. I know we don’t have the means right now, but I firmly believe that one day we will and then you can still go to uni if you want to, get a degree, and we’ll move into a beautiful old house on the countryside and have a dog or two, or five.”  
Dan chuckles under tears and wraps his arms around Phil’s neck, kissing him hard, clinging to him as if for dear life. And in many ways, that’s true. Phil’s been there for him when no one else was, has helped him up onto his feet again, cared for and comforted him countless times, and Dan would be mad not to hold on to him. In Dan’s darkest days, Phil is like a ray of sunlight, so full of wisdom and courage and hope. And in all honesty, Dan doesn’t need a lot of money or a nice house if only he gets to keep Phil by his side.  
Dan’s never been one for faith, but if there’s one thing he believes in it’s them. He knows that he loves Phil.  
And if they’re lucky, that might just be enough to hold things together.


End file.
